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news
CiCLE Women's Classic (VeloUK)British Cycling’s “unacceptable” transgender policy suspension makes leading women's race sponsor pull out, as organisers weigh up offers
The organisers of the women’s and junior men’s CiCLE Classic are confident that the races will go ahead as planned in June after “numerous” offers were made by potential new sponsors following an online appeal.
The races, which form part of British Cycling’s National Road Series and the Junior National Road Series respectively, appeared to be on the brink of cancellation on Tuesday after long-term sponsor Pete Stanton announced that he was withdrawing his backing in protest against British Cycling’s recent suspension of its trans athlete policy.
Stanton, who had funded the women’s race since its inception in 2016 and was one of the driving forces behind its creation, told Velo UK that he has many friends within the transgender community and that “I feel that I would be letting them down if I did not make a stand to show my support for their rights”.
Stanton’s withdrawal has left the organisers scrambling to plug a £15,000 funding gap to secure the future of the Melton Mowbray-based races, which have quickly become one of the highlights of the British cycling calendar thanks to their use of gravel sections and farm tracks, as well as an illustrious list of winners, including Katie Archibald, last year’s victor Abi Smith, and the 2014 junior men’s winner James Shaw.
The men’s Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic, the top-ranked UCI British men’s one-day race since the demise of the RideLondon-Surrey Classic, is unaffected by Stanton’s departure and is set to take place on Sunday 24 April.
British Cycling has pledged to offer additional support of just under £10,000, while race director Colin Clews launched a public appeal on Tuesday in a bid to secure the remaining funds. Since then, Clews says he has received “numerous” offers of financial support from companies and individuals, as well as women’s rights groups.
Yesterday, the campaign groups Sex Matters and Fair Play for Women announced that they have made a formal joint offer to sponsor the race. However, Clews says he and his colleagues are wary of accepting financial backing from campaign groups for fear of “politicising” the race.
Last week British Cycling suspended its transgender and non-binary participation policy with immediate effect, essentially blocking trans athletes from competing pending a full review.
The national governing body, which has found itself in the spotlight since the UCI’s decision to bar transgender cyclist Emily Bridges from making her racing debut as a woman at the British Omnium Championships, described the situation as “unprecedented in our sport” and argued that the current system is “unfair on all women riders and poses a challenge to the integrity of racing”.
Explaining his decision to step away from the CiCLE Classic, Stanton said: “The transgender policy adopted by British Cycling had been the result of a full consultation process and was believed to have been working well until last week when it was suspended without any further consultation.
“Whilst fully supportive of women’s sport, I also have many friends and colleagues within the transgender community whom I feel that I would be letting down if I did not make a stand to show my support for their rights.
“This is not the first case of a transgender rider competing under UCI rules, or even as part of an official UCI team, and to arbitrarily change that position based on one individual case, I find totally unacceptable.”
He continued: “I am desperately saddened by the Emily Bridges case and the actions that it has prompted me to take. I sincerely hope that a satisfactory resolution to her case and that of similar cases in the future can be quickly found in the interests of all parties involved, and sport in general.”
ONE MONTH to save @CiCLEWomens following the loss of our long term sponsor. Can you help? New major or small sponsors sought urgently. Enquiries to: cicleclassics [at] gmail.com pic.twitter.com/sLOwzrKHFw
— colin clews (@CiCLEWomens) April 12, 2022
Following Stanton’s departure, Clews launched a public appeal in an attempt to find “like-minded partners who can help us to deliver the race in 2022 and support its future development.”
The race director also paid tribute to Stanton, who he described as “massively committed to the development of women’s racing within the UK.
“His financial contribution to support this aim over the past six years is way beyond that of any other private individual. As an organisation we hope that it may be possible to renew our collaboration at some stage in the future to continue our joint pursuit of promoting domestic women’s racing at the highest level.”
A phenomenal response to our plea made yesterday means there WILL be someone following in @abijesmith wheelmarks in June @CiCLEWomens THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! Including @BritishCycling News to come! pic.twitter.com/o0VeUI8Aqt
— colin clews (@CiCLEWomens) April 13, 2022
Yesterday Clews took to Twitter to announce that “a phenomenal response to our plea made yesterday means there will be someone following Abi Smith’s wheel marks in June,” and praised the “absolutely incredible” outpouring of support from the public.
However, while he told BBC Sport that he and his colleagues are currently considering the joint offer made by Sex Matters and Fair Play for Women, alongside other commercial alternatives, Clews admits to having reservations about the potential political impact on the race if it becomes linked to women’s rights groups.
“At the present time, myself and colleagues are considering that [offer] amongst other options that might be available to us from commercial sources,” he said.
“We want this event to continue into the future and therefore we would prefer to link with a partner or number of partners who are able to give us financial backing for a number of years ahead, so we're not in the same position next year as we've found ourselves in this year.
“Secondly, and this is important to appreciate, we are a cycling event, our objective is to pursue women's cycling and to promote it at its highest possible level in this country, but I have colleagues who have reservations with regard to the potential link to women's rights groups that might indicate to anyone out there, or certain individuals out there, a politicising of the event.”
Clews, who says he “endorsed” British Cycling’s suspension of its transgender and non-binary participation policy, told the PA news agency that the pitch from Sex Matters and Fair Play for Women was so far the “only firm offer on the table”, but indicated that crowdfunding could still be an option to secure the 2022 edition of the race, though a high-risk one that wouldn’t provide long-term stability.
The race director also called on cycling's governing bodies to settle the debate currently raging around transgender participation in the sport.
"What is so important to us is the fairness of any races we put on and certainly the current suspension that British Cycling have imposed on Emily Bridges we can only endorse because that goes along with that fairness element,” he said.
“But competitors such as Emily, they wish to compete, we shouldn't be stopping them from competing, but it's how and where and when they compete that's the big question.
“I'm afraid those are questions that shouldn't be placed with me as an organiser, they are for the governing bodies to resolve.”
If funding is secured, the women’s and junior men’s CiCLE Classics will take place as planned on Sunday 19 June.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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72 comments
I'm off out on my bike later today...
Take that kind of talk elsewhere you weirdo! 😀.
The problem with a lot of this is that the trans-radicals play in the nuance, the outliers, the "it's complicated" arguments when it's actually not.
Twitter is awash with it all and anybody that tries to apply biology, science or common sense gets shouted down and called a transphobe (as well as racist, homophobic and whatever else they can throw).
I've never had an opinion on trans rights, always been on the "everyone should have the same rights" stance. That was until the question came to womens sports, where it's biology/physiology against biology/physiology, not ideology. I have a few gay friends (men and women) and not one agrees that biological men should compete against biological women. We all agree that trans people should have representation in sports but not at the cost of female sports. But, for the trans-radicals that's not good enough. And so I think they may awaken a sleeping giant, the people that, like me, didn't have an opinion before, but do now.
Define "biological woman" then.
you've had abiut two months now to come up with an answer
Given you so confidently state that this is SCIENCE you will be able to find such.
put up or shut up.
Seeing as pointing out the obvious doesn't work then we'll drop back to the XX chromosomes.
Using the chromosomal definition should cover everyone except 0.0018% of the population.
https://www.statsforgender.org/dsd-intersex/
This is where you clutch your pearls and scream "TRANSPHOBE" whenever presented with irrefutable evidence. Maybe throw in a link to a non-binary Viking or a 2 spirited indigenous tribe. We've seen it all before and it's just not working. Look at how many people are now posting on these threads saying trans women shouldn't be competing against non-trans women but it seems to be the usual few that say they should, because, you know, gender and all that when gender doesn't come in to it really.
Yep, that's definitely how you define a woman. Absolutely.
it's definitely "science" to do so. Meaning I'm sure you can point to a paper stating such definitively?
I mean, currently you're sounding more idiotic than these lot, which is saying something... https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/04/06/republican-woman-def...
I mean, you wouldn't make bold claims without being to back them up now, would you? Especially as that's trolling behaviour, much like stating a trans competitor definitely threw a completion in order to show that trans women can be beaten. Or whatever malicious nonsense you made up and are hoping has been forgotten.
or even, your claim that the greatest thing a woman can do is give birth?
no pearl clutching. Despair at the open bigotry. It's like you're proud of it.
XX does not work for everyone however as you say.
The incidence of DSD is about 1 in 5000.
What do you do for those individuals?
We aren't talking about DSD people are we? We are talking about trans women. People with DSD have been allowed to compete and dominate
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics_–_Women%27s_800_metres
It's about time you shut up and left this forum. It is for cyclists, not trans activists. Have you trawled the internet and registered on sites just so you can spout your views and slag off anyone who doesn't agree with you?
For what it's worth, you asked me to define a biological woman. I did, I answered what I define a biological woman as. But it wasn't good enough for you. And now you are pushing the same agenda on other forum users, with the same abuse.
What do you do when you aren't trolling sites pushing your views and calling everyone who disagrees with your views as transphobic? Go out and glue yourself to a road and slag off people going about their daily business? Or destroy historic statues?
Go away, take your extreme heterophobic views with you. Leave this site be, it was a decent site with good discussions until you came along and caused trouble.
heterophobe.
Enniugh trolling.
this is a cycling forum. This is a cycling topic. We know this, because the editors a) put it up, and b) it's about cycling. I'm sure even you can work out that this is in on topic. Not that I have to justify myself to you, but I've been reading this site for years now whoops another assumption you made that you're wrong on....
So no, I will not be silenced by a transphobe. The fact that you want to silence people supportive of human rights says a lot about you. I will not "shut up" about defending human rights.
I stated a definition of biological woman that could be agreed upon by actual science. You gave an offensive definiton, and an offensively bad definition.
Wait- so you think statues that literally glorify the enslavement of humans are "historic" now? You're really supporting the glorification of the enslavement of people? So you're a misogynistic transphobic happy with slavery type now?
No heterophobia here. I'm sorry you're so blinkered you can't take any minute challenge to your cis-het-dominated world with any semblance of grace or awareness.
You're a troll, a keyboard warrier. All you have done on here is slag people off. No discussion at all. It is your way or everyone else is transphobic.
Nope, there is discussion - the fact you yet again don't seem to realise that it's possible to have discussions with others that you apparently don't even see if hilarious.
"Blinkered" hardly covers it.
I've posted comments elsewhere on this topic with others members of this site, where we have the ability to discuss. Like a lot of things, you remain ignorant.
(You also take up a disproportionate amount of time, as you post so much hate it's unbelievable)
The only discussion you're interested in is one from your sycophantic followers. Anybody who disagrees with you is a transphobe in your eyes.
Wrong, but not for the first time.
Also, "sycophantic followers"? Wow! So anyone who agrees with you is what, right, and anyone who doesn't and thinks you're a terrible, terrible bigot is a sycophant? Impressive.
Fortunately you're on the dying out side of history here...
Would you re-post that, please? I think a lot people are genuinely interested.
I think there's a confusion of terms here as "woman" is a gender, so that's more of a cultural term than a biological one.
Going from Wikipedia, we get this:
That's all well and good, but there's still people that don't fit easily into one or the other and besides, with sporting categories it might be more useful to separate people into easily measured characteristics such as height or weight rather than continuing with male/female.
Surely that depends on whether success in your 'sport' is dependent on production of sperm and/or eggs? Perhaps it makes sense for some public school pursuits...
In any case, I think there's another confusion here. I believe nosferatu1001 meant 'stipulated', rather than 'stated' - that is, rather than having given such a definition, they had demanded one.
Female: Ovaries, eggs, womb, fallopian tubes, chromosomes, shape of pelvis, hormone levels.
Male: Testes, sperm, vas deferens, chromosome, prostate gland, shape of pelvis.
Call me simple.
You forgot about forum posting and explaining habits!
Are all of those requirements, or is just a subset needed? (e.g. if someone has their prostate removed, does it change their sex?)
Just a subset - if you have more than one chromosome, that's enough to qualify you as female.
Okay, but my pelvis has a shape (i.e. not an amorphous blob), but that would make me both male and female (begins checking for secondary sexual characteristics).
Also, if a female surgeon operates and removes someone's prostate, does the surgeon become male whenever she's holding it?
But you've now posted twice trying to correct someone else's posts on a forum - that's irrefutable!
I like the idea that Freud was literally right though and a phallus is the phallus. So maybe it just works like the conch in Lord of the Flies, you just have to hold it?
The frequenters of our picture palaces
Have no use for psychoanalysis;
And although Doctor Freud is distinctly annoyed
They cling to their long-standing fallacies.
You could just check whether you have any detectable hormone levels.
So, if I have just one chromosome, I'm male and anything with more than one chromosome is female?
I think looking at both composition and construction is the way to go if you're being "scientific". The 19th century has us partly covered there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Are_Little_Boys_Made_Of%3F
I recognise that the liberal left will jump on my comment, because the best form of liberal defence is attack, but here we go. In my opinion, there should be a trans women and a trans men section for sports. Biological women should compete against biological women only, and biological men should compete against biological men only. You can argue all you like but until a trans man competes and wins against men, I do not accept it to be fair.
Do all those who support trans women competing against biological women agree that if that is acceptable, then it should be acceptable for a trans man to compete in, say, the Tour de France. Because if you don't then you are a hypocrite.
You still haven't defined "biological woman" yet. Any chance you or your ilk could do so?
as for transmen competing and winning, how about
https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/trans-athletes-win-boys-sports
And
https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness/transgender-athletes-to-watch
Also, define "fair" in a way that is objective and not just your presupposed ideas. You were challenged to do this last time you spouted your ideas, yet conspicuously couldn't do so.
Well, my definition of a biological woman is good enough for me, and many others. It is what defines a woman. When a trans woman can have a child naturally, come back to me.
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